technavio: GLOBAL BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT AS A SERVICE MARKET 2016-2020
… Business processes that are integrated with cloud services like software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are commonly referred to as BPMaaS. In recent times, it has been observed that many organizations have started adopting BPMaaS solutions to maintain product quality, remove inefficiencies in manufacturing processes, check errors, track design changes, enhance overall productivity and reduce costs, ensure time management, boost ROI, and improve time-to-market.
Exchanges JSON with Cloud Services via OAuth2 or Custom-Headers
Kyoto, Japan – May 23rd, 2016 – Questetra, Inc., the global SaaS provider of Business Process Management (BPM), today announced that they have published the new version 11.0 of the cloud-based Workflow product “Questetra BPM Suite” on May 23rd, 2016.
In this new version 11.0, it has become capable of communicating with more External APIs, for its automatic communication function has been enhanced. Specifically, it allows data federation with Core system which requires “Custom HTTP header” such as a Cloud database service “kintone”. This feature will allow configurations, e.g., automatic reference to “Client Master information” which exists external in the middle of “Estimate approval Process”, and automatic update of Common options file by “Daily synchronization Process”.
Questetra BPM Suite
“Questetra BPM Suite” is a multipurpose Cloud-based Workflow product (SaaS product) which is capable of “PDF Auto-generation” and “External connectivity”, etc. Using this product, you will be able to make various in-house processes going Online, not only simple business operations such as “Application procedure”, “Decision-making request”, or “Document translation”, also complicated operations such as “Service provisioning Process” or “Process of sequential operations to Bill issuance from Order acceptance”. (BPM: Business Process Management)
Its most outstanding feature is Mouse-driven configuration of “Business flow”. This feature allows a Process-owner, who knows the business should be, to continue to iterate the Improvement cycle on his/her own in day-to-day work. (Free for up to 10 Users)
Enhancement of HTTP Request Transmission function
Regarding Setting property of “Throwing Message Intermediate Event (HTTP)”, an optional “HTTP header” becomes available to be added. With this function, it is now capable of communication methods which adding header such as “X-Cybozu-API-Token:” or “X-ChatWorkToken:”, instead of having been capable of secure communications only Requests that were authorized by “OAuth 2.0 communication” or by “Basic Authentication” until now.
Regarding the feature to indicate current progress (current Step) on a Business Flow Diagram, “Route that passed through up to that point in time” has become obvious. In addition to “Current location of the Issue” and “Operator of the upstream Step” that have been indicated with icons, “Pass route” is shown in red arrow.
Dashboard
Regarding [Dashboard] feature which concurrently displays multiple Aggregation graph, it is now available to display, e.g. a line graph such as “Monthly change in the total amount of the order”, or a bar chart of “Weekly changes in total amount of Reimbursed expenses (Department breakdown)”. You are now able to display graphs from various aspects, in addition to being limited to “the number of Issues that operated by own” or “Bottlenecking in Decision-making Process (Heat map)” so far.
Hierarchical Select-box
You are able to set up hierarchical relation (dependency) among Select type data items. For example, when you select an option of “8: East Asia” at a Selection form for “Area” (out of 1: North America/2: Africa…./8:East Asia), in a Select form for “Country”, only “81: Japan/82:Korea/852:Hong Kong/86: China…” will be displayed. So far, additional description of JavaScript was required to achieve this, you are now able to set up easily by specifying the dependency. (Forward Match of [Options ID])
『Questetra BPM Suite』は、「自動PDF生成」や「外部接続」等をサポートする高機能なクラウド型ワークフロー製品（SaaS製品）です。「申請手続」「稟議承認」「文書翻訳」といったシンプルな業務だけでなく、「サービス提供プロセス」や「受注報告から請求に至る一連の業務プロセス」といった複雑な業務に至るまで、様々な社内プロセスを幅広くオンライン化することができます。（BPM: Business Process Management）
We will start Questetra BPMS SLA on April 1, 2016.
Now, we would like to announce that we are going to change some of the contents of our service from April 1st, 2016; including the “Introduction of service quality guarantee system”. This is a summary of those changes.
For more details regarding each change, we are planning to add a description on the related web pages, such as “Price”.
1. Implementation of SLA
As the use of the Cloud service is becoming common, many of our customers have requested us to clarify our service level. However, we were unable to provide a baseline since the service started in 2009 up until now.
From April 1st, 2016 on, we will establish an “Equal to or more than 99.9% uptime” as our Service Level Agreement. If by any chance, the accumulated downtime and the actual value of the “Service availability rate” became less than the guaranteed value, we will issue “Service credits”.
Service credit
If the availability rate is less than 99.9% in a given month: The equivalent of 10% of the month’s fee will be issued as service credit.
If the availability rate is less than 99.0% in a given month: The equivalent of 30% of the month’s fee will be issued as service credit.
Downtime is defined as the state in which the main system has no external connectivity.
Service credits will be issued within 30 days upon receipt of claim from the customer.
Service credits can only be applied for future payments of the customer.
Service credits cannot be transferred or be applied to the payment of other contracts.
As the “Electronic document storage” of receipts of expense has increased, many of our customers have requested us to provide more storage capacity. However, we have limited the storage for “Attachments” to up to the equivalent of “1GB multiplied by the number of available User accounts”.
From April 1st, 2016 on, we will ensure storage capacity to up to the equivalent of “5GB multiplied by the number of available User accounts”, which is 5 times more than before. As a result, you’ll be able to save a larger amount of “attachments”.
Subject of Storage limit (specification)
Files stored in File type data items in the Workflow
Files attached on Open Chat (Enterprise SNS)
We will also start selling options for Extra Storage for those who need more capacity.
There are no limitations on the type of data stored, such as String type data items and Date type data items, etc.
Separate “Communication restrictions” apply to the transmission of data to Questetra (HTTP: 100MB).
3. Coverage for Flexible plan
Some customers, such as the ones who were conducting trials in small teams, or whose business have busy seasons and offseason, have requested a charge method according to actual usage. So far, even in such a cases, you had to register specifying the number of User accounts in advance.
From April 1st, 2016 on, you will be able to choose the “Flexible Plan”, which is based on the actual use. In those cases, you will pay the fee that corresponds only to the use (Fluctuating number of accounts registered) on a subsequent basis.
New Prices
Flexible Plan: 12.00 USD per User / Month (6.00 USD per User / Month for Contracts Over 200 Users)
Annual Plan: 9.60 USD per User / Month (4.80 USD per User / Month for Contracts Over 200 Users)
Addition and Deletion of Users is available at anytime through [Users with Administrators privileges].
When “The number of registered Users” on a given day is less than 20, it will be considered as 20 people (minimum).
In the “Annual Plan”, we do not refund based on cancellation or decrease in User accounts that occur within the validity period of a contract.
You cannot change to “Flexible Plan” from “Annual Plan”(only until the annual update).
Please note that, the “Monthly Plan”(currently in use) will no longer be available in the future. We appreciate your understanding in this matter.
Kyoto, Japan – November 2nd, 2015 – Questetra, Inc., the global SaaS provider of Business Process Management (BPM), today announced that they have published the new version 10.4 of the cloud-based Workflow product “Questetra BPM Suite” on November 2nd, 2015.
In this new version 10.4, significant speeding up has been achieved in “Combo-box form” (Search select) in the data input screen. This will allow a Select input form to set up to refer a Master data which is as large as tens of thousands of articles. For example, by registering “Customer Master” in the Workflow platform, “Selection of a Customer” in invoicing or billing operation will become more efficient and accurate. It is also possible to register entire “Postcode-address Master” which the number of records reaches 150,000.
Speeding up Combo-box (Search-select)
The processing speed of the Data Selection Form that refers to the “Options master” (options XML), has become significantly faster. For example, a setting of input completion of data, such as “Address” and “Postcode” in referring the entire Postcode list which reaches to 150,000 lines, is now available.You can confirm the operation on the demonstration system in the following URL. http://en.workflow-sample.net/2015/11/zipcode-xml.html
Other Improvements
Debugging Execution
A designer of Business Process Definition (Process Model) becomes to be able to test run a Process Model (Debugging execution) in the middle of designing. From now on, you are able to flow testing Issues freely, without affecting the Process Models in operation nor Issue processing logs, whereas previously there was a need to test operation on another Workflow environment when you have modified many parts.
User Timezone
It becomes capable of displaying by the Timezone of each User of the time information on Issue date and in the logs of Issue processing, etc. It allows overseas staffs and remote workers who are working in different Timezone from the system standard time (server time) to recognize the time information more easily.
Request Message Throwing (enhanced)
In the function of HTTP Request automatic sending to external servers, it becomes capable of sending any text as Request body. However, it is limited to the formats (Content-type) of “text/xml”, “text/plain”, “application/json”, for the time being.
Q. What kind of Business are you using Questetra for?
Nippon Ichi Software Inc. is a game development company headquartered in Kakamigahara City, Gifu Prefecture. We are developing games for a variety of platforms, such as PlayStation, Wii, smartphones and the Internet, etc.
We are developing a lot of products for the joy of our customers under the founding philosophy that a game is a product, not a work of art, and our management philosophy “Is that fun?”. Some of our most famous titles are “Disgaea” and “Hayarigami”.
We are using Questetra for a variety of applications, including budged approval requests for developing projects.
Q. What challenges did you have?
Previously we had been managing budgets on paper.
I think there were three main issues:
Not knowing the budget consumption status immediately (separate calculations were required)
A time consuming approval process (snail-mailed from outside the headquarters)
In rare cases paper got lost in the process
With the introduction of Questetra we can now easily monitor the use of the budget at any time. Also, I think that processing which used to take about one week has been reduced to a few days. Worries that the documents might get lost in the process have been completely eliminated by the visualization of the progress.
Incidentally, we were also keen to reduce our paper consumption in the interests of the environment, so we are delighted with the results.
Collaboration with Office 365
Q. Please tell us about your usage in collaboration with Groupware.
In day-to-day operations we are using the groupware Office 365, for the bulletin board, email, schedule management and web conferencing.
So, we were considering a workflow which can operate in collaboration with the systems we use in day-to-day business.
Fortunately, Questetra has a SAML integration function, so we have configured a Single Sign-on environment with Office365 / Azure AD since the beginning. I think it is helpful for Users in terms of not needing to enter a password for each system, as well as for system administrators in terms of reducing the work load.
Q. Please let us know why you chose Questetra.
The most important thing is that it’s easy to implement the business flow.
We were able to understand the entire business visually from an overhead view, and the designing process was as easy as arranging icons with a mouse. We were able to clarify Processes and Steps from the staff in charge of each operation. For applications and decision requests which had previously been carried out in paper, we now have a much clearer picture than we expected.
Also, we are satisfied with the function for collaboration with other systems.
Even though we still have a long way to go, we would like to promote more collaboration with other in-house systems, and to take advantage of Questetra’s API.
Q. What kind of situations did you start using Questetra BPM Suite for?
Shanon Inc. is a software company that provides Marketing automation to help companies market themselves.
We support companies in their marketing activities in the form of cloud services. In addition, we have also deployed comprehensive marketing consulting services such as outsourcing, process design and infrastructure system building, besides offering the tools for its implementation (cloud services). In market research for integrated marketing support we have received the rating of No.1 market share for five consecutive years (*). (* ITR Market View; Marketing Management Market 2015)
We are a young company. Even though the history of the company is short, we are using Questetra BPM Suite under the belief that we want to strengthen the backbone of the company by systematizing the expertise which we have gained so far!
We began using Questetra BPM Suite in February 2011 with about 60 people. In the beginning, we used it only for application-related tasks, but after a few years we started using it for all employees’ tasks.
Q. Please tell us specific ways you utilize it.
There are approximately 100 Business Processes operating in Shanon. Among them, although we have very strict rules for the transfer of information, we have created a Business Process so that everyone can follow those rules.
More specifically, for example, in the handling of personal information we define a Workflow procedure that can achieve the following:
Checking by a third party
Saving work evidence
Recording of work history and ensuring traceability
Even though we will not store personal information in Questetra itself, we can simply indicate the Business Process Definition for personal information management and its business history when we get evaluated by the certification institution for updating the Privacy Mark.
2004: Information Security Management System BS7799-2: 2002, certified
2004: Information Security Management System ISMS V2 Conformity Assessment Scheme, certified
2007: Information Security Management System ISO 27001, certified
2008: PrivacyMark System, certified
We appreciate that even the staff in overseas bases (like Shanghai) can use it at the same level of service as domestic staff.
Data Integration with Google Spreadsheet and Backlog
Q. Please tell us about your implementation.
In a slightly different area of internal control, we also link data to Google Spread Sheets for asset management.
Since we have a lot of IT equipment such as personal computers, etc., which are difficult to manage, we implemented request applications on the Workflow to install new equipment or dispose of the old. The latest information is automatically registered on a Spreadsheet for asset registration, so we can monitor equipment use in real time. This is also useful for third party asset checks, as they can quickly see what equipment is being used, where and by whom.
In addition, we have recently implemented a collaboration with Backlog, the project management tool. We are now aiming to execute operations according to the the progress plan in Backlog, as well as the progress management and business records in Questetra.
Q. Please tell us about your expectation for Questetra in the future.
Although it has already been more than four years since we started using it, we still feel that the setting up the operator of each Step is difficult.
For instance, the decision-making authority is determined by the combination of Role and Organizational hierarchy, but the rules are very complex and therefore the Workflow diagram will become really complex as well. Although this might be a somewhat unreasonable demand, we would appreciate if settings for operating personnel became more intuitive even when the assignment rules are complex.
Also, we are planning to get more staff involved in Business Process designing. We would be able to accelerate the improvement cycle of Business Processes if the help function and manuals were enhanced together with improving searchability.
